The monstrosity on the wall held a strap, made to look like leather, in its bony right hand.The strap itself attached to what at first resembled a pair of sunglasses until Ken realized what they actually were – the orbital bones from a human skull.
“Well, hello,” he whispered with a smile.
The brilliant piece of art was a portrait of Yum Cimil, one of the great Mayan gods. He"d seen representations of this particular deity many times over the years, but none as expertly crafted as this; all others were a child"s experimentation with finger-paints by comparison. It brought into question the Honduran science team"s assumption that this was a temple. Mayan temples were, as a rule, a place where all gods were revered, not just one.
Ken squatted and brushed dust off the area below where the painting ended.What came forth from the sandy grit was a seam three feet off the ground. He marked the crease with his finger and followed it to the floor. Bugs scattered. It was a door. A very small door that seemed to have been sealed shut. He pushed against the block of granite. It gave slightly, and then wouldn"t move again. A soft, virtually unnoticeable vibration clattered in his head. Something isn’t right here, his subconscious warned. Must tread lightly.
Ken didn"t listen.Exhilaration overrode his common sense.
Snatching the pickaxe from his tool belt, Ken went to work.He hacked away at the stone barricade, the pick head spraying chunks of rock towards him each time he pulled back. A small hole appeared, and then grew larger, then larger still. The obstruction came down with surprising ease, crumbling like dried clay. Sweat poured down his chest, drenching his shirt and irritating the mosquito bites that dotted his flesh, and pooled in his crotch, but he paid no mind to the discomfort. All he could think about was what lay behind that wall.
One final stroke created a gap large enough to squeeze through.He tossed in the flashlight, stuck his head into the hole, wedged his shoulders through – the sweat covering him helped in this regard – and finally let himself drop on the other side like a freshly born calf.
His elbows struck ground that was at least a foot below that on the outside, followed by his knees.He yelped as pain rattled through his bones. A disgusting, noxious scent – much like vinegar – assaulted his nostrils for a moment, and then disappeared. He fumbled for the flashlight, which shone an arbitrary beam on the pile of discarded rock he"d created. His heart raced and he felt out of breath. The chilling sensation of being watched tiptoed over his shoulder blades. He flashed the light at the hole he created, now above him, just to be sure. There was no one there, no people, no phantoms; even the insects stayed away, much like they had in the main chamber. He breathed out a sigh of relief and cursed his childish paranoia.
The room felt cold and cramped, though it was bigger than the passage which led to it.The ceiling hung low enough that he had to tilt his head to stand, but at least he was through with the squatting. The place was thin, only four meters at most, but at least three times as long.
With his back to the door and gazing straight ahead, his flashlight only created the tiniest of circles; he decided he"d get to that part of the chamber later. He sniffed the air – the odor of vinegar must have been his imagination, he assumed – and realized the chamber smelled much like the basement of his mother"s house in Banbury. Like an ill-maintained, moldy fruit cellar.
He shrugged it off to the humidity and began examining his surroundings.
The first thing he noticed – other than the thousand or so cobwebs – was the shrine.It stood against the wall a few feet to the right of the entryway. He drew close and inspected it; made of some sort of limestone composite whose surface shone with natural, glass-like crystals, a meter wide at its rectangular base, coming up in a pyramid shape, with a bronze effigy of Kinich-Ahau, the sun god, his face green with oxidation, watching over the room from its perch on the shrine"s apex. Maybe the temple theory is back in play, he thought.
A shelf of white bone protruded from the area below the effigy.Below that was an ancient book. Looking at the side, it seemed as if the pages would disintegrate should anyone deem to touch them. The cover had been warped by time but was otherwise preserved, and after blowing the dust off he saw the tapestry on its surface had remained intact, as well. A gold-leafed outline of a blazing sun emerged. Ken"s jaw dropped.
The Popol-Uuh. The Mayan holy book. It had to be. Oh, what a find! Over the years, very few bits of parchment thought to be from that very text had made their way across the desk of his Regent Park office. Most were fakes – all but one had turned out to be, in fact – and the only genuine article he"d ever witnessed was a single half-leaf whose pictograms were essentially unreadable. He"d given up hope after that. But now…now, it could all be different. There it was